The Price We Pay
by Dren Dyer
Summary: What price would you pay for your happy ending? This is a Rumpelstiltskin origin story, starting from his birth and going through to adulthood. Will end up in Storybrooke in later chapters. Read and Review please. On Hiatus. Will continue after season 1.
1. Prologue

"Ella…how could you?"

The look on his face broke her; the betrayal, outrage and hurt that radiated from his eyes, was too much to bear.

She stepped towards him.

"Please, please understand, I didn't know, I thought he meant gold or jewels, I didn't…I didn't know I would have to give him…" She trailed off, unable to say the words that stuck in her throat, to voice what she had promised to the creature.

"Just, please, please don't be angry with me." She reached for him and he jerked away as if burned.

"Don't. Don't try to justify what you did." His voice was laced with venom.

"Please…darling…"

"I'm not your darling. I'm not your love." He spoke, shaking his head and backing away from his wife.

"I was just your ticket out of a life filled with cinders and ash. Wasn't I?" he asked her looking at the floor. He continued. "I was your golden knight, riding in on a white horse to save you from your wretched beginnings and bring you into your shining future. But now…" he turned away from her and gripped the post of their bed canopy.

When he spoke again his voice was barely controlled and he was trembling.

"What, exactly did you ask him for?"

"Sweet heart I…"

"No!" he cut her off again and white knuckled the bed post in his hand. "I want to know what you thought our child was worth! What you bought with our baby!" he whirled around to look at her, hand still grasping the wood of the bed frame to keep himself from tearing out his hair in anger or worse, raising a hand to his pregnant wife.

Ella was crying now, large drops fell from her eyes to the floor like little glass jewels, which instead of inspiring pity only served to remind him of those damn slippers she had worn the night they met.

He finally let go of the wood pillar supporting their bed frame and flew to his wife's clothing chest and tore through it, looking for the box he knew he would find at the very bottom.

He ripped the glass slippers from their adorned wrapping and held them up to her. "Was it this, Ella?" he hissed. "Did you ask him for pretty shoes and a pretty dress so you could woo the handsome prince?"

"No, please Thomas, that's not it at all."

"Or maybe you didn't need to woo me? Maybe you asked him to put a spell on me so that I would fall in love with you and look past your obvious lack of nobility and breeding." He spat.

"I would never do that, never. I fell in love with you and you…you fell in love with me!"

He looked at the glass shoes in his hands. "Is that right?" he chuckled softly. "I fell in love with you? But you see, right now, I'm having a hard time believing I could ever fall in love with someone so ignorant…" he tightened his grip on her shoe.

"…So selfish." He reared his left arm back.

"So unbelievably selfish!" he threw the shoe, shattering it on the wall and watched with dark satisfaction as the beautifully crafted crystal became a pile of broken glass.

Ella sank to the floor, weeping.

Thomas panted and looked back at her withered form. "I don't think I can ever forgive you for this Ella." He turned again to look at the shoe in his other hand and then carelessly tossed it aside. It didn't fragment, like its counterpart, only cracked on one side.

Her sobs had turned to whimpers and she wrapped her arms around herself helplessly.

"Get up Ella." She looked up at him eyes swimming, but no compassion greeted her in his stare. "Get off the floor and put on your traveling cloak," he went to her wardrobe and pulled out the item, tossing it at her feet.

She stared at it mutely.

"Pick it up and put it on, we're going to the enchanted forest." At this she looked up, alarmed.

"Why, why take me to that cursed place?"

"Because," he said putting on his own cloak. "We are going to seek out this, Rumpelstiltskin, and he and I are going to make a new deal, one that doesn't involve my future son or daughter."

"Does this mean that you lay the blame on him and not me? That you understand that he tricked me?" she asked hopefully.

"Absolutely not," He answered, while pulling on his boots. He looked at her crestfallen face and moved on to his gloves. "But I need you with me. If we are going to right this wrong we must do so together." He reached for her hand with his now gloved ones. She rose and took it shyly.

"Make no mistake," he said as he opened the door. "I haven't forgiven you, I don't know if I ever will, but right now the most important thing is our child and what this creature wants with it."

She bowed her head and nodded into the hood of her cloak.

"For our child then…" she said softly, fingers lightly grazing her stomach.

And the two of them, hands held, stepped out into the dark.

Forty years earlier,

In the Kingdom of Or

"This is completely unacceptable!"

A meaty fist came slamming down onto the ornate desk in the dusty, gloomy office and immediately, the hand that had caused parchment, quills and ink to go flying and scattering off the table, began to shake from the slight exertion of balling his appendage. The tremors of old age coursed through his fingers and traveled up his arm to his wrist, which was covered with a cuff of yellowed lace that belonged to a wine colored waist coat with brass buttons and trimmings of silver thread.

It seemed that at one point in time the doublet and shirt he wore was of very fine quality, but where the buttons should have shone they were dull, and where the silver trim should have been neat, it was frayed.

Indeed, his clothes were just as haggard and drawn as his visage, which now poured over what was left of the papers on his writing desk. Dark circles, sat under his murky black eyes which were partially obscured by a curtain of stringy, iron-gray hair that fell in an unruly cascade down the sides of his face and the back of his neck to just reach his hunched shoulders. The wrinkles around his tired eyes and across his forehead and drooping chin made caverns and canals in which stray bits off food and rivulets of wine enjoyed to travel, only to find their final destination in his tangled, mossy beard.

When he smiled, which was seldom, you would see that he was missing a great many teeth and the ones that were left untouched by the black rot seeping from his gums were the color of yellow brown.

The King of Or, indeed the man described in such grisly detail, sat at his desk mumbling quietly to himself about the rising cost of grain in the wake of his earlier outburst, when the door to his private study swung open, and without a knock or an invitation, a young man came strolling in.

"Father." He greeted him shortly.

The King did not look up from his work, only grunting to acknowledge his son's presence. The Prince of Or sat down in rather sunken arm chair across from his royal father and waited patiently to be allowed to speak.

After what seemed like an eternity of unintelligible mumbles and the soft scratch of quill against parchment, the Old King spoke again.

Still without looking at his son, "What do you want now?"

"Father," he replied, sitting up in the chair. "We must talk about my wife."

The King harrumphed and rose from his chair with much protest from his screaming knees, to stand by the large window in the office, his back to the prince.

He chuckled quietly, at his own private joke. "Hmm, yes your wife. You know, son, I thought that when you ran off and married that girl in such a hurry, that it was because you'd put your bastard in her belly."

He traced the dusty glass with his fingers lightly frowning when they came back caked in gray.

"But it turns out that your sole motivations for eloping with that common whelp were spite and sentiment."

The prince stiffened at the king's words.

"I love her, father." He said softly.

"Hmmm," he said, wiping his fingers on the threadbare curtains. "Be that as it may, I was willing to overlook your disadvantageous marriage in a time of dire financial peril because I thought that at the very least your foolish union would have wrought a legitimate heir to the throne."

"Father I…"

The king silenced him with a wave of his hand.

"That was over three years ago Edward. And in that time in the absence of royal children our kingdom has had less and less rain, and much more starvation and disease."

"Father," Edward sputtered. "You don't expect me to believe that you blame the lack of rain and the suffering of our people on Dora and me taking too long to have a child?"

The king rolled his eyes and finally turned to face his red faced son. It struck him for a moment how like him the boy seemed just then, when the wizened old king was at his prime. Broad shoulders, chestnut hair, startling green eyes, all his, only the proud and pointed nose was his mother's.

"No, of course I don't you dolt. But you must understand that for a small kingdom like ours a strong bloodline is key," he began to shuffle about the room at a snail's pace.

"Royal children, lead to royal marriages, which come with dowries and alliances and resources we do not possess, especially if those children are boys." He stopped at his son's chair and placed a trembling hand on his shoulder.

"Your sweet mother gave me twelve sons, but you are all I have left. I must be able to count on you to do what is right for our people and to lead when I am no longer able."

"I understand my duties as future king father it's just…"

"Just nothing boy! You will carry out your responsibilities to the best of your abilities because you must, and that includes providing an heir, which as I recall you finally got around to doing." The king left his hand on his son's shoulder and gripped it gently.

"That is what I came to talk to you about, Hickory and Dickory told me that the baby would be born sometime in the next few days, I came to inform you of the imminent birth of you first grandchild."

The king harrumphed again and clapped his son on the shoulder.

"So nice of you to try and keep me in the loop, but I have been monitoring the progress of that child since you first learned of its conception, there was no need for you to leave your pregnant wife to come and tell me that bit of old news."

The prince faltered slightly and reached out to gently grab the hem of his father's royal robe, a sign of supplication.

"It's only that…that I wanted to come and invite you in person. To come to the house I mean."

The king stared down at him silently for a beat then. "What do you mean invite me? You dithering dirt clod, did you really think that I wouldn't want to be present for the birth of my only son's first child over something as trivial as an elopement?" He sauntered over to his desk to gather his abandoned work and put it in a locked drawer.

"Phfft, we were all young once sonny, I know how…charming pretty, young things can be." He turned to his son again, who was now smiling fondly in his direction. The king cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Well? Let's go then, we don't want that little flower of yours to squeeze out that mewling mess when we aren't there to catch it. What are you waiting for?"

The prince rose with a grimace.

"Yes let's hurry, but I do believe father, that it is the midwife's job to "catch the child" as you so eloquently put it."

"Yes, yes." The king dismissed impatiently. "Whoever is doing the catching doesn't matter but what you name it does, and I insist you name the child after me if it is a boy, your late mother if it is a girl."

The prince smiled as they made their way to the waiting carriage.

"Rapunzel would be a nice name for a girl, especially if she turns out to have mother's beautiful golden hair," he frowned slightly. "But I highly doubt any boy prince would want the name Rumpold."

"Well, why the bloody hell not? Rumpold is a fine, strong name, been in our family for generations; that boy will win all his battles with a strong name like that."

"Yes well, it is very old fashioned, and common, I'd rather something unique and new."

"New, my wrinkled backside, you should always stick with the familiar sturdy names Edward, if you really despise your father's name that much we can have a fairy present at the birth, I'm sure she'll glean the most suitable name for the child."

The prince sighed as he helped his father into the carriage.

"I don't despise your name. I'm just not sure I want to call him that. Anyway, we're not even sure it's a boy yet."

"But you're hoping." The king quipped knowingly as he settled into the seat.

"Yes," Edward whispered. "hoping..."

The king knocked on the hood of the carriage loudly.

"We're off to my son's cottage," he bellowed. "to see my new grandchild!"

And then the carriage lurched forward, and they were on their way.


	2. Golden Boy

Okay, so second chapter. Finally! I forgot to put an author's note before but I remembered this time so here goes :) One: I do not own Once Upon a Time or any of the original fairy tale characters and Two: I don't think anyone would pay me to piss on this story let alone read it so you know I'm not making any money from this fanfiction. In the last chapter i really wanted Cinderella's scene to be rewritten because i thought it was pretty dumb how easily Prince Thomas just forgave her for essentially selling her kid. Anyway, here's chapter 2, Rumpelstiltskin's birth, feedback is greatly appreciated. It's a little longer than chapter one and I worked hard on it, but tell me if it sucks okay. I'd really like to improve where i can. I'm in nursing School so updates may be slow, for a little while longer but the semester's almost over, so then I'll be able to devote more time to you all. ;) Hugs and love! And Review please!

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><p>Golden boy<p>

"This baby isn't going to wait for your husband to get here m' Lady, it's coming fast, you'll need to start pushing soon."

Hickory leaned over her cringing, sweaty, charge with concern, mopping her brow with a damp cloth.

"Please," Dora pleaded, through clenched teeth. "Can't you give me something? An Herb or Elixir to, slow the delivery? I don't want him to miss the birth of our eldest."

The short, round midwife shook her gray head.

"No, my dear, we cannot risk anything adversely affecting your child at this point," she tucked a lock of dark brown hair behind Dora's ear soothingly. "You had a difficult pregnancy my Lady, a long and arduous one, and it may be your natural instinct to try and regain some semblance of control over your body, but you have to let the child come at its own pace."

The red faced mother -to -be looked conflicted for a moment and then nodded stiffly.

"Whatever is best for my child, Edward will have to meet his son a little later than me."

"Oh? So sure it's a boy are we?" The Lady Isadora D'or and Hickory looked up to see the midwife's husband and son walk in carrying a case of instruments. Hickory brightened at the sound of his voice.

"Dickory, Husband. You have arrived, and with our eager son in tow."

"Yes my dear," Dickory set his tools on the table and leaned over to give his wife a kiss on her brow. "You know I can never keep him away from births; bringing children into the world is one of his favorite pass times." He gave the princess a wink and studied her briefly.

"Well, well, it looks like someone is finally ready to meet the world." He laid a soft chubby hand on her stomach as another contraction ripped through her.

"Aggghhhh!" she screamed and gnashed her teeth together.

"Shhh," he soothed. "Let it come, it's just your body's way of telling you it needs help delivering the child." He reached down and pulled a pair forceps and a stethoscope from his kit. "You need to push now, my Lady. Are you ready?"

"She'll have to be." Hickory said, answering for her. She lifted the sheet and looked down at the princess's swollen bottom half. "The child's head is crowning." She flipped the sheet up completely to expose the birth canal and urged the princess to sit up.

"Now, my beautiful princess, Lady without compare, I need you to sit up now, yes, yes that's it, and bear down when the next contraction comes. Do you understand?"

The princess nodded fearfully.

"Yes, yes I understand. I just, I wish that Edward were her right now. I need him."

Tears began to well in her eyes as she prepared to bear her child without her husband.

"There, there dearest, I know this is difficult, but there'll be plenty of time for a good cry later, right now, we need to concentrate on the task before us."

Dora sniffed and reached for Hickory's hand, "I feel another contraction coming." She turned towards the elderly dwarf. "I don't know if I can do this alone." She confessed softly.

"But you are not alone my dear," Said Dickory kindly. "There's me and Hickory, our eldest boy and that bundle of joy fighting to come out of you. Your husband will be here soon enough, but until then, you can make do with us for company." He patted her hand affectionately and moved to kneel at the foot of the bed. "Now get ready, here comes that contraction, and push!"

Dora squeezed Hickory's hand tightly and, gritted her teeth pushing with all her might.

"Yes, yes, very good. Again Dora. Push!"

"Unnggghh!" She pressed again and felt a shift below. "What happened?"

"You've cleared the child's head my dear, and a fine head it is, now another big push like that and we can get the shoulders."

"Yes, alright." She said determinedly, spurred on by this sudden burst of progress.

"My, boy come here and take the forceps, we may not need them after all, make sure the water isn't too hot and that the scissors are properly sterilized."

The bespectacled and demure young man nodded, took the instrument from his father and went to prepare the tools for the post birth.

"And again Lady Dora, Push!" He reached down and gently touched the child's neck, checking for the chord or obstructions. "Yes, you've almost got the shoulders now, push!"

She gave one final shove with her pelvis and felt her child slide smoothly out of her. The young man cut the cord immediately and expertly and set about cleaning the blood and vernix from the child's body.

"What is it? Is it a boy? Oh tell me please." Dora begged reaching desperately for her new born.

"My dear girl, your afterbirth is coming quickly too, let our Doc tend to the child's immediate needs and make him presentable for his father, while you take care of this last thing. Alright?"

She acquiesced reluctantly and craned her neck to see what Doc was doing to her child.

"Okay my Princess. One big push should do it, are you ready?"

A cry pierced the air suddenly, her child's paramount cry as it took its first gulps of air. She looked longingly over at the table where Doc was busy clearing the child's airways of any mucous and sprinkling fairy dust into his eyes.

"Now, now, just concentrate on this my dear, come on push." Hickory said from her place beside the bed. "Your child's lungs are well and strong, now push."

Dora tore her eyes away from her new baby and bore down for one last time. She heard a squish and a pop, like someone had burst a flagon of wine.

Hickory gasped next to her. "Oh, my Lady…"

"Now my dear don't be alarmed, but I must ask you to not look down, do you understand?" Doc cautioned.

"What?" She asked panic stricken. "Did I push out the entire placenta? Is there something wrong?" She sat up, against the advisement of her doctor and midwife and did the thing she was just asked not to. She looked down. And she saw. And she immediately fainted back into the down pillows.

The last thing she heard as the room darkened around her was Doc's muffled voice breaking through her haze of exhaustion and shock.

"Father, it's not just the after birth, you must come and look at this child…."

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><p>Warped and distant voices surrounded her, someone was whispering. They sounded familiar but odd, strained perhaps. Dora struggled to regain consciousness and open her eyes but sleep was like a dark blanket covering her. She couldn't lift it, but she could make out some of what the voices were saying.<p>

"…well at least it's a boy and not a girl"

"….not natural…"

"I thought it was jaundice at first but then… when I saw…."

"I knew something was wrong…"

"What should I tell her?"

"….bless it anyway?"

"What gift….it's useless blue fairy."

"Give it something…"

"That skin…"

"And his eyes..."

"…monster…"

Dora struggled against the bonds of repose and forced her eyes to creak open to reveal a darkened room and its seven other occupants.

"My son," she croaked weakly. "Where is my son?"

Edward was at her side in moments and took her hand in his.

"My love, you're awake."

"Edward, our son, give me our son, he must be hungry. I need to feed him." She pushed herself up in the bed and looked around at the other persons in the birthing chamber.

Hickory, Dickory and Doc, were sitting by a bassinette that she had made from reeds and willow branches, the blue fairy was hovering by the door, her husband was looking at her worriedly and her father in law sat in a chair in the corner, looking quite grave and solemn.

"What is it?" She asked looking around at them all. She felt her heart constrict and her throat grow tight.

"Is he…dead?"

Edward looked up at her sharply.

"No." he said firmly. "No he's not dead."

She breathed a sigh of relief and reached towards the bassinette.

"Then for God's sake bring him to me, I want to look at him."

All of the others exchanged looks of trepidation.

"Perhaps," Doc said quietly. "We should prepare you first."

"Prepare me for what? Just give me my child, you said it earlier, that he was healthy and strong. Has that changed?" She looked at Hickory expectantly.

"No, no your highness." She said flustered. "But…"

"My son." She held her arms out to Dickory expectantly.

The old dwarf rose and lifted the squirming bundle out of the bassinette, gingerly handing him to his mother.

Her eyes lit up expectantly as she gently lifted the swaddling cloth obstructing her child's face, but what she saw, made her shriek in horror.

"What…what?"

She looked down at her son, too dumbstruck to speak, to ask the questions everyone knew she so desperately wanted to. What is this child? How did I give birth to such a son?

"My dear," Edward said gently, after a painful silence. "Say something, please."

"He's…yellow." A collective cringe rippled throughout the room.

"Not yellow," The fairy corrected gently. "Gold."

Dora reached trembling fingers towards her child's lips, and traced them slowly. His eyes cracked open a bit as he drooled on the offered digits.

"His eyes, they're gold too, and so large, like an animal's" Dora said hazily.

"It's alright Dora; everything is going to be alright." Edward said stroking her face.

"I know it is." She said firmly, and snapped her gaze toward the fairy godmother.

"Blue, if you haven't bestowed your gift yet, I would like you to cure my child of this hideous malady. Give him the skin he should have, and rid him of this dragon hide that covers his body."

The fairy shrunk back a little, and looked away.

"I thought that you might ask for that, so I already tried. But, it seems that his appearance is permanent."

Dora blinked and looked at her evenly.

"You mean that my son will look like this, for the rest of his life?"

"Yes," she said softly. "He will."

Dora stilled once again, and withdrew into herself saying nothing until she began to slowly mumble under her breath.

"We prayed every day for so long, for a child that would bring prosperity, and instead we are gifted this, this, thing."

"Dora dear try to get some rest, we can talk about this when you're well." Edward gently pushed her back down onto the mattress and reached for the boy. "Give me the child, dear."

She blinked and handed him the bundle rigidly.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes take it away. I neither want to look upon it nor hold it to my breast."

The Blue fairy floated over to the bedside sheepishly.

"I know I could not give you the gift you wanted, but if you tell me the child's name, I shall bestow on him another fine bequest."

Dora stiffened and turned to fix Blue with a Hollow stare.

"That _thing_ does not deserve a name." The room grew hushed once more.

"My dear," Edward said, voice pained and cracking. "You cannot mean that."

"Oh, but I do. We wanted a son, not this twisted creature, you may call it what you will, but I will have no part in the naming of that changeling babe that wormed its way out of me. I will not."

King Rumpold rose; his chair creaking.

"Edward, I must speak to you outside, now." He shuffled out as his son reached for his wife's hand only to grasp air as she yanked it back angrily.

"Your Royal Father summons you. Go."

He shot her a mournful look and trailed out after the king, leaving the uneasy atmosphere in the small house, to be enveloped in the cool evening air.

"Edward," his father said, not looking at him. "What I'm about to say is difficult."

"Father, just tell me plainly, I can take no more of this "gentle talk" and I need to return to my wife."

His father sighed and looked up into the darkening sky.

"That's just it my boy, she won't be your wife for much longer."

A beat, then.

"What do you mean she won't be my wife anymore? What knowledge do you possess that I do not? Is she dying?" He asked incredulously.

"No, no." the king shook his head firmly. "She will recover. Physically anyway." He played with a bit of loose thread on his doublet absently and spoke again.

"But very soon your marriage to that girl will be dissolved by royal decree."

The prince's face darkened with rage as he advanced on the king.

"You would annul my marriage? Abuse your power in this way? On what grounds, on what authority…."

The king cut him off.

"The child within is reason enough." The prince opened his mouth to speak again but the king continued. "That child, the way he is, cannot be an effective leader for our people, the duty of the future queen is to produce viable heirs to the throne, and your wife," he spat, harshly. "has just proven that she cannot perform the only royal duty she has."

The princes shoulders sagged and he shook his head in disbelief.

"Father, you wound me more than any sword ever could." And then. "I will not let you do this, I will find a way to love that boy and be the King this kingdom deserves"

"Oh?" the king scoffed, tugging at the offensive thread. "And just how will you do that."

"By taking responsibility." Edward said as he strode purposefully towards the carriage. He unhooked the lead horse and saddled it swiftly.

His father spun around as fast as his old bones could take and hobbled over to the prince.

"Just what the devil do you think you're doing Edward?"

Tight lipped and determined, he answered. "I'm going to the forbidden forest father."

The King sputtered in disbelief.

"Why in heaven's name would you want to willingly venture into such a dark and desolate place?"

The prince stroked the horse's mane thoughtfully.

"For my family."

The king looked at him stone faced, saying nothing

"If a good fairy can't fix my son, then maybe a dark fey can." He tightened the saddle and swung up onto the horse. "They live in that forest, and if I can trade with one, I can right all the wrongs done to this kingdom."

"My boy," his father said alarmed. "Do not be foolish, you can never truly know the price they ask of you, and if you take what is offered you may lose more than you were willing to give up."

Prince Edward looked down at his father from horseback and shook his head.

"I must make my own decisions now father, and as you leave me no choice when it comes to Dora, I must go." He nudged the stallion with his heel and moved into a slow trot.

He called back as he rode off.

"Tell my Isadora." He paused. "Tell her…that I will return when I have succeeded in my venture. Tell her that I love her, and our son. You can do that for me at least, father."

He watched his son gallop off into the night.

Yes, at the very least, he could relay this message, this promise from his boy, but he never did, and the Prince Edward, did not return.

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><p>Yay! Chapter two. BUM BUM BUM! Where is Prince Edward. *Sigh* Wouldn't you like to know? Next few chapters will be about Rumpy's childhood. So review to encourage me to update. :)<p> 


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